Research

National Cardiac Arrest Audit (NCAA)

The Resuscitation Council (UK) and the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC) have established a nationwide database of cardiac arrests that take place in hospital. The aim is to enable analysis of all in-hospital cardiac arrests and to compare the frequency of, and outcome from, cardiac arrest between hospitals.

Overview and status

NCAA is the only national, clinical, comparative audit of in-hospital cardiac arrest with the aim of improving resuscitation care and outcomes for the UK and Ireland. It is a joint initiative between the Resuscitation Council (UK) and ICNARC (Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre).

This important national clinical audit monitors and reports on the incidence of, and outcome from, in-hospital cardiac arrest in order to inform practice and policy. It aims to identify and foster improvements in the prevention, care delivery and outcomes from cardiac arrest.

Data collected

The current scope of data collection is: Any resuscitation event commencing in-hospital where an individual receives chest compression(s) and/or defibrillation and is attended by the hospital-based resuscitation team (or equivalent) in response to a 2222 call.

Participating hospitals collect data on a standardised dataset. The current Level A dataset module consists of 30 fields covering patient, admission, cardiac arrest, and short-term outcome data. Future dataset modules are likely to focus on interventions and longer-term outcomes. Data are collected, entered onto the NCAA secure online system and validated both at the point of entry and centrally, to improve quality.

To request information about the current NCAA Dataset, please contact the NCAA team.

Recruitment continues

NCAA continues to actively recruit hospitals and coverage in England is over 80% (of adult, acute hospitals)! Is YOUR hospital participating? To view the current list of non-participating (and participating) hospitals, reasons why hospitals should participate, and testimonials from hospitals on the benefits of participating visit the ICNARC website.

NCAA Report

Reports are quarterly and cumulative (based around the financial year) and are downloadable from the NCAA secure online system for verified NCAA users at participating hospitals.

After achieving a sufficient sample size, NCAA statistical risk models have been built. The models take into account differences in patient/event characteristics that would be expected to result in differences in outcomes for 'ROSC>20 minutes' and 'Survival to hospital discharge'.

Participating hospitals receive risk-adjusted comparative analyses allowing them to fairly compare their patient outcomes with other participating hospitals (anonymised) and NCAA data for the first time.

Research and national NCAA statistics

The latest journal paper from NCAA is entitled ‘Risk-adjusted survival for adults following in-hospital cardiac arrest by day of week and time of day: observational cohort study’ and was published in BMJ Quality & Safety in 2015.

The first publication from NCAA entitled 'Incidence and outcome of in-hospital cardiac arrest in the United Kingdom National Cardiac Arrest Audit' was published online in the international journal Resuscitation in 2014.

Thank you to all NCAA participants for their ongoing hard work collecting data which makes such important research on in-hospital cardiac arrest possible. We anticipate that these papers will be the first of many generated from NCAA.

The latest national NCAA statistics for 2014/15 are also available to download from the ICNARC website.

For more information about NCAA or how to join, visit the ICNARC website or contact the NCAA team: ncaa@icnarc.org / 020 7269 9288.